The Wish, Part Two

[alexcalibur]

The Wish, Part Two: Ariadne

He could see her house.

For the first time in nearly four years Adrian was looking out from the road and across the fields and hedges towards the house that lived in infamy for his childhood self. It had been the discussion of so many lunch-time meals with his friends at school, and a place he had always secretly dreamed of going to. While most of his friends had been drawn to the place because of the mystery (and rumours) that surrounded Ariadne, or because of the taboo created by their parents, Adrian had felt a more sinister fixation. When he was a child he had been afraid to go there, though he often had the opportunity; something had always drawn him back. However high school brought more important things into his mind, like friends, his social life, women and eventually college and all the opportunities it would give him, so he quickly forgot about Ariadne and the whole legend that surrounded her. Looking at her house again now brought back some of his past apprehensions. As he approached the small lane that would take him to her doorstep, Adrian nearly drove on towards town to make up some excuse to his parents why he had decided to visit. But he didn't. He knew that Ariadne was the last hope he had to realize his inmost desire: achieving the deep masculinity so far deprived of him, and he couldn't jump ship now.

Adrian turned off the road and onto Ariadne’s drive. It felt so strange to him to be driving up to her house now, in the light of day at 20 years old, when he had shunned the place so entirely as a child. It was a remarkably beautiful house. It consisted of a small farm cottage, done in the Cape Cod style, with a low, broad frame, perfectly pitched roof, and end gables. The entire house was white, with navy blue shutters on the windows, and a central stone chimney. It was set amongst gardens and expansive lawns which contained several other small farm buildings and eventually faded into the fields that surrounded it. All around trees had been planted, very long ago, and were now massive and provided the area with soft shade. Adrian had not really been expecting it to look like a normal house, and it took him off guard. Of course he had seen it before, but usually from far off, from the edge of the wood that bordered its property to the east, or from the road, but he had always expected it to be more disconcerting once you got closer. But it looked completely normal, and again the anxiety and thoughts of what a colossal fool he was began to return to him.

He parked his car and got out. Suddenly he realized that he would somehow have to broach this uncomfortable topic. How exactly do you approach a person about local rumours and a request of their supernatural powers? Adrian had been so caught up in his obsession to become more masculine, and debating whether or not to see Ariadne, that he had never once thought of how he would actually ask her what he had come here to ask. But now was not the time for cold feet, he told himself, and slowly and apprehensively knocked on the door.

There was a stirring inside, and Adrian heard footsteps coming across the wooden floors. The front door opened and Adrian was left gaping. He was expecting, especially after the normality of the property itself, for Ariadne to be horrifying, or at least strange, but the woman who stood before him could be his mother… perhaps a few years younger. She was about 5’10’’, he guessed. Her eyes were dark, like chocolate, and her hair fell in glossy pleats of near black. But what caught Adrian the most was her skin. It was perfect, like the colour of cappuccino, and nearly flawless, without any discolorations or age marks, and very few wrinkles. Her neck was long and slender, and sank down into a generous swell beneath her collar bone, revealed by the low cut of her white dress. The dress was the only thing about her which looked old; it was like a costume out of a period drama, and was thick and layered unlike modern dresses. Instead of the stereotypical image one has when thinking about the local hermit, rumoured to be involved in something sinister, this woman was exquisitely beautiful.

Adrian opened his mouth but the words caught in his throat, and he merely stared into her deep, consuming eyes beneath their heavy lids. “Can I help you?” She asked in a quizzical yet unbelievably attractive voice, thick with what appeared to be a Mediterranean accent. “I’m sorry for my tone but we have very few visitors…”

“No… well, um, yes, yes you can,” stuttered Adrian. “Are… you Ariadne?” The thought had occurred to him that perhaps this wasn’t the same “witch” his friends had talked about as a child… perhaps it was her daughter, or a friend.

“Yes, I am Ariadne. What do you want?” She continued to look at him with the same inquisitive expression, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of hers.

“Oh, um, my name’s Adrian. I live in town just down the road; I was just driving back from school…”

“I see… and why, Adrian, have you come to my home? I don’t think we have ever met one another before…”

“Well, to be honest, I’m a little bit embarrassed, and I don’t know how exactly to broach the subject, but I was wondering if you might be able to… help me with a problem I’ve been having.” He gave her a weak smile and raised his shoulders as if to lighten the awkwardness of his appearance; the beautiful and unexpected woman in the doorway had rattled him deeply.

She paused for a moment; her eyes still locked on his face, and then smiled herself. Her eyes closed and she let out a quiet chuckle, and then turned and opened the door to her home. “Come in, Adrian,” she said with a humoured tone as she turned her back on him.

Adrian shakily stepped over her threshold, and as he did a strange feeling came over him, probably best described as nervous excitement. The lower level of Ariadne’s home was one large space, with wooden beams adding the only sense of division. All the wood - the floors, pillars, cabinets, ceiling beams and furniture – was done in the same dark colour, and the walls and ceiling were painted with the identical off-white as the outside of the house. A narrow, wooden staircase led to the upper floor.

Ariadne led Adrian into the rustic kitchen and motioned for him to take a seat at the table while she moved towards the cabinets, her back to him. Adrian’s eyes lingered on the beautiful skin of her upper back before turning his eyes to take in the room. The kitchen was perhaps the only thing one might expect in the home of a witch. There were shelves from floor to ceiling leaden with hundreds, perhaps thousands of jars, tins, bowls and bags full of different powders and dried plants. Others had old books and stacks of yellowing paper, with half-melted candles running over the edges. Adrian was looking at a painting of a naked woman in a night-time forest which was hung beside the stove, when Ariadne asked, “Would you like some tea, Adrian? I had just steeped a pot before you knocked.”

“Oh. Yes please, I’d love some.” She brought the pot to the table with two cups in her other hand and poured his tea. She then took a seat opposite to him, began pouring her cup and asked him while her eyes were still down, “Why don’t you tell me about your problem, Adrian, and then I can see if I can…” She paused and looked up at him, again holding his gaze with hers. “…help you.”

Once again his throat felt dry, and he was lost for how to tell her why he had come. He raised the cup of tea to his lips and took a long draught. The moment Adrian felt the hot liquid pass his palate, his entire body seemed to unwind. He fell back in his chair and allowed the strange, radiating calm to pass through him, warming every part of his body. Slowly he regained his composure and placed the cup back on the table with a click; the anxiety he had felt a moment before had gone. Adrian’s eyes drank in the beauty of the woman sitting across from him, who was smiling, and the entire room seemed to be filled with an almost invisible haze that made objects radiate and fade into one another instead on being completely distinct.

“I… I can’t stand my body.” He heard himself say, though he was hardly aware of moving his lips.

“But, Adrian, you’re so beautiful…” She replied genuinely across the table.

“I don’t want to be beautiful,” he sneered. “I want to be a man! I want to feel the way a man ought to feel - not be beautiful! I want to have a man’s body, I want women to desire me, to feel light headed when they look at me, to – “ He was almost yelling now but Ariadne had held up her hand and stopped him.

“But of course you want beauty, Adrian… just not the beauty you already have, am I correct? Another kind…” She smiled.

“Y – Yes. I want to be masculine. No, not masculine, that’s not enough…” Adrian was looking down at his long fingers on his lap, the years of yearning suddenly pouring over him in his strange intoxicated state.

“You must have tried many things, Adrian, to come and ask a stranger for help. But what makes you think that I can help you?”

“I, well, I don’t know exactly... People had said – well I’ve heard people say, that is – that you can do things that other people can’t. That you have abilities other people don’t.”

She was smiling broadly again, and looking at him from beneath her heavy eyelids. “Do you believe the stories they tell about me?”

“N – No…”

“Don’t you?” Her face had become serious again, and she was looking at him with the same quizzical gaze she had given him at the door.

“I… don’t know. I just need help… please.”

“I know why you are here, Adrian.” She said. “Other men have come to me before with much the same things in mind. They have heard a whispered rumour that there is a woman who lives outside of town who can do strange things. They believe that I am a witch and will therefore play party to whatever fantasy they have hidden within themselves. Yes, Adrian, I know what you want. You want me to give you the voice, the face, the body… and the cock… that you feel you have been cheated of. You are beautiful yet it is not good enough – “

“No!” He interrupted her. “I just – “

“You don’t need to pretend, Adrian. I have never had a husband but I know well enough what men desire,” she continued. “I do have the power to do what it is you ask of me, and I can see into your mind and know you have only come to me as a last resort. I know that you never came here during the night as a child to terrorize the old witch like your friends did. And yes, some of them came to me as well, but they have got what they deserved…”

“What do you mean?” Adrian asked, confused.

“A few years ago a girl from town came to me with a request, like yourself. She was very beautiful, yet conceited and selfish, and convinced that her boyfriend was unfaithful to her. Of course he had done nothing wrong but she was jealous and unyielding of the fact. She asked me to make it so he would never look at another girl again. In order to teach her a lesson I granted her wish…” Ariadne smiled devilishly at that. “Her name was Isabella Duncan.”

Adrian knew Isabella Duncan. In senior year her boyfriend had suddenly and inexplicably gone blind for two months before abruptly recovering. However, afterwards, Isabella herself was stricken with some strange illness. She became emaciated and her hair fell out; her back became horribly deformed and she was eventually unable to walk and had to be taken to long-term care at the hospital after her condition continued to deteriorate. “You did that to her?” Adrian asked, incredulous.

“Before I agree to help anyone, Adrian, I warm them that there are always consequences to having the things they most desire. Even our dreams may prove to have hidden realities that are not so idealistic. Isabella came to me with a selfish request, and when magic is performed with selfish desires in mind it will often act against you. Magical acts are also not so easily taken back once they have been committed, and so when Isabella came back begging me to reverse the spell I had cast upon her boyfriend, which made him unable to look at another girl again, just as she had asked, the repercussions also found their way back to her, where they rightly belonged.”

Adrian's throat felt dry. He had never thought for a minute to connect what had happened to Isabella to the old stories he had heard as a child about Ariadne.

“So what do you want to do, Adrian?” The witch asked with her hands clasped below her chin, staring straight into his eyes.

Adrian’s heart was torn after hearing her story. But looking back at Ariadne and finding her gaze once more, his apprehensions melted away. He remembered why he wanted what he did. He saw the images in his head: his beautiful face attached to a thick body, rippling with muscle. He imagined the sensation of a long, thick cock running down the leg of his pants; feeling the tightness in his crotch caused by his oversized testicles. He imagined the pleasure of making love to a woman and strutting around the locker room with that body. Adrian considered Ariadne’s warning, but he felt like he understood what he had asked for: he wanted to have the ultimate male physique - to be the ultimate male - and he didn’t see how this could turn out wrong.

“Change me,” Adrian said. “I want to feel my muscles inflate uncontrollably until I have a body unlike any other man. I want a big dick. Please… make me the ultimate man.”

Ariadne stood up and took a sheet of the old, yellow paper off the shelf and began writing something illegible on it with a quill and ink she had taken from a drawer. “The spell will be cast tonight at midnight. Take this paper Adrian.” She folded the paper she had written on twice and handed it across the table to him. “Do not open it or read it, but at midnight, draw a drop of blood from your finger and press it to the paper, then it will be done… and you will get what you desire.”

Adrian took the paper from her. They finished their tea without speaking to one another again. Afterwards, Adrian stood up, thanked her and walked back to his car. Ariadne didn’t get up from the table to say goodbye, but sat and watched him leave, smiling to herself.

* * *

It was midnight. Adrian was back in his room at college after driving all afternoon. He took a small knife out of his drawer and drew a drop of blood from the center of his index finger. He picked up the folded paper that he had left sitting on his desk, and looked at it curiously. All the desires and dreams he had had about his appearance came to a head in that moment and disappeared finally from his mind as he pressed his bloody fingertip against the paper’s surface. The folded sheet suddenly burned in his hands and Adrian dropped it to the floor, where it turned to ash, spreading out from where his finger had touched.

A dizzy sensation came over him, and Adrian stumbled backwards into his bed. He felt like he was going to throw up, but slowly the nausea quelled and he was left only with a fever. After taking his clothes off and getting back into bed with with underwear on, Adrian fell asleep with his own image in his head: tight fabric was stretched to breaking over his massive chest, his arms were wrapped with enormous mounds of muscle, his jeans were like a second skin over his huge tights and rounded, muscular butt, and could barely contain the outline of a cock any porn star would sell his soul to have.

* * *

To Be Continued...

[Shadow69]

Nice.
Very good build up for the character, am interested in reading more when you have it written.

[Muscle_Knight]

This is building up to be one awesome story! Can't wait for the next part...

[no name]

I agree - can't wait to read more...

Cheers,
no name

[Strmchaserboi]

Wow. I am enjoying this story alot. I was all excited when he touched the paper and really excited that he was gonna change and then frustrated that I encountered :to be continued:. Can't wait for the next part.

[2bored]

This is great! My favorite sort of thing for this sort of thing.

[umlerian49]

You've done a terrific job creating the mysterious atmosphere-- good writing!

[Canus]

A well writen and captivating story.

[rabiyya]

You spin an intriguing tale - beautifully done! I look forward to the next installment :-)

[jmiran22]

great work man, we are looking forward to know more

[unhulkingfigure]

I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.

[msclundylvr]

Keep going! It's very enjoyable!

[mjtunstall1976]

oh shoot now i have wait bec it said to be continue!!!

great story more please!!

[Mak_Pymn]

Now that was...I would say awesome but the depth of this piece demands a better word.Mmm...Intriguing? Nah...amazing. OK its just really good.I really loved the way you wrote this entire piece...there wasnt a single part where I felt as if a part was missing. I especially loved Mr. Soldens words and the irony of the shade appearing in his room after he wanted to see one...I also totally agree that a writer shouldnt be sane, and for the same reasons you mentioned. Sane people are so fickle and cowardly. Most of the time.

[no name]

Hey alexcalibur,

I really hope you'll continue this story - I liked the first two parts a lot!

Cheers,
no name